6
PARTISAN REVIEW
ing under a half-metre of shovelled earth, a metre of sriow, and
the nameless weight of eternity.
On the first floor, committees filed their folders in boudoirs
divided by white-wood partitions; rows of odd-sized mattresses,
garnered in the requisitioning, were placed on the floors of the
great gold and white salons, transforming them into dormitories.
Enormous crystal chandeliers tinkled faintly to the passing of
trucks. Humiliated prisoners who, perhaps, had once ascended the
marble stairs of that very mansion with dignity, faced by the
impassive regard of lackeys in cafe-au-lait livery, now awaited
their transfer to the Extraordinary Commission in the cellar. From
time to time, the guard nonchalantly resting his arms on a filthy
table, at the entrance to the stair which led to the cellar, got up,
regretfully shouldered his rifle, which he carried with the barrel
pointed down to the ground, and unlocked the prison door.
"Let's go," he said without malice, "Bankers to the latrines!
in threes!"
He pushed the fat bodies ahead of him with familiarity. They
jostled against each other on the narrow stair, then hesitated a
moment in the courtyard, faced by the shining snow.... Snores
came from the detachment of the guard stationed in the ancient
kitchens.
II.
The previous year, before the Austrian socialist had betrayed
two revolutions, the former Chevalier Gardes Street had been
called, for a time, Frederick Adler Street. There were only a few
who knew its present name, Street of the Barricades, crushed
beneath a century's usage of the old name. Number 12 was a tall,
commonplace house, with dilapidated courts, overlaid with the
melancholy gray of old houses. There, for sixty years, the gentle–
born had lived out their routine: honoring the saints, eating well,
sleeping under warm eiderdown quilts. Money flowed in steadily,
